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"I've always enjoyed French Lick, and I could care less what they say about it. I think maybe if you grow up in a small town you learn better to weed out the good and the bad. There's always going to be a lot of petty jealousy in a small town. If you understand that—and I always have—you can learn better to make your own judgments."
"The first thing I would do every morning during the season, was look at the box scores to see what Magic did. I didn't care about anything else."
"You've got to understand. My whole life's been basketball. It was never a recreation for me. It was something I fell in love with."
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"But you know what? He'll be all right. He knows all these people are here to see him. He has a sense of that, even if he'd never admit it. It motivates him. I think we look at the road the same way—as a chance to come into somebody else's building and bust 'em. I know I still feel that way. And when you do it, it's the greatest feeling." - Kevin McHale
"He could never hit a two-handed set shot." - John Havlicek
"He wants to be Larry Bird again, but his body won't let him. It shows on his face after he misses a shot he knows he should have made, after things he knew he could do before and can't do now. He's never going to admit it—he's a no-excuse guy. He's in pain, but he's such a damn warrior he's not going to give in no matter what. The back could go out tomorrow, and he'd still be out there, because that's all he knows. That's why I've got to give him the utmost respect. When the chips are down, he's going to be out there whether he's walking around dragging one leg." - Magic Johnson
"If I had to start a team, the one guy in all history I would take would be Larry Bird. This is the greatest ballplayer who ever played the game." - Red Auerbach
"Something's really going to go out of this franchise when Larry leaves. And, I guess, to a lesser extent, Robert [Parish] and me, too. But mostly Larry. They're really going to lack a guy like that, somebody who's got that something special, you know? Every good team has to have one. Magic [Johnson] in L.A., Larry here, Charles [Barkley] in Philly. I really believe Reggie, Brian [Shaw] and Dee are going to be good. Real good. But they're going to need that other element, that element of toughness, something special." - Kevin McHale
"So much of it—playing, in the locker room, away from basketball—has to do with how much he cares. Larry cares about every element of everything he's involved in. With some people, the sphere of their life is so very small. The sphere of Larry's life is just huge." - Bill Walton
"When rookies come into the league, their role models for performance, for dealing with the media, for dealing with fans, for dealing with everything, are much more sharply defined than they used to be. We owe people like Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Julius Erving a great debt for that." - David Stern
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